


In the Bleak December

by poisontaster



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ficlet, Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-28
Updated: 2007-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-24 07:52:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4911388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"My name's Dean Winchester. This is my brother Sam. You've got a ghost. We could help you take care of it, if you want."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Bleak December

Lexie thinks the house is haunted.

Mara can't agree with her—at least not within Alex's earshot—but she's starting to think Lexie's right.

They moved into the house about six weeks ago, Alex crowing the whole time about what a good deal they got and Mara thinking excitedly of the paint samples carefully packed into her suitcase, so she can get to them first, before the massive unpacking of boxes begins. She's always wanted her own house. Where other girls would moon over the man they were going to marry and their wedding colors, Mara dreamed of jewel-toned walls, so different from the bland impersonal white of every apartment she's ever lived in. She mulled over the merits of Moen faucets versus Kohler and wandered faithfully into Pier One to run her fingers over table settings and napkin rings and plate chargers of faux gold and silver.

If she'd ever thought about it at all—which she really hadn't, because Mara Anne Bartowski, _nee_ James doesn't believe in ghosts—she would've thought there would've been some sense of dread as they crossed the threshold of the house, a dip in the temperature, an ominous bolt of lightning. Something. Something to tell them: _you do not want to live here._ But the truth is that she doesn't know if she and Alex would've listened to any such warning if there'd been one. This is their _home_ , and they both loved it on first sight.

Most of the time, Mara's not even sure if she's not imagining it; the windows that close after she's firmly opened them…that could just be the aging of the frames. And the noises…well, all old houses make noises, don't they? Wooden floors and supports and stairs, all expanding with the heat of day and settling with the cool of night…it doesn't have to mean anything.

But then there's the other stuff.

Like getting lost in the six by three space of the front hall coat closet in the dark, fumbling for a door that no longer seemed to be there and working herself up to full blown hysterics before she _finally_ chanced across the knob and threw herself sobbing into the vestibule. No matter how she turns that around in her mind—and Mara's not a hysterical woman, God knows—she can't make any logical sense of that one.

She gets chills just thinking about it now, as she runs the soapy and dripping dishcloth around the plates before stacking them neatly into the ancient dishwasher. So much so, that when a sharp knock comes to the back door, she startles and nearly screams, fumbling the plate into the sink with a clatter. Mercifully, the plate doesn't break.

Mara ignores the faint tremor in her legs as she goes to the back door and pushes the curtain aside to give her a better view of the steps. There's a boy there, ragged and dirty, and a smaller boy half-hidden behind him. Mara's never had much occasion to use the word, but if she had to find one to sum the two children up, it would definitely be feral.

The trailer park is clear on the other side of town; she can't imagine the boys would have come from that far, but she can't imagine they've come from any of her neighbor's houses either. _Maybe they're runaways,_ she thinks, with a little frisson of the unfamiliar.

 _Maybe they're ghosts,_ she thinks a second later, and the utter absurdness of that thought makes her laugh a little and slices through her uneasiness. She puts the chain on and opens the door a crack.

"Can I help you boys?" she asks. Her voice wavers in a higher register than normal and embarrassed, she clears her throat and aims back toward normal. "It's kind of late for you to be out, isn't it? Are your parents looking for you? Are you all right?"

"My name's Dean Winchester," says the boy in front, who can't be more than eleven and a small eleven at that. The boy in back, the younger one, tugs Dean's hand. Dean ignores it. "This is my brother Sam. You've got a ghost. We could help you take care of it, if you want."

Mara blinks.


End file.
